For the third time in recent weeks, the Van Ness South Tenants Association sent a letter to Equity Residential management, reiterating that DC law prohibits landlords from removing tenant association informational material from bulletin boards.
Recently, the tenant association has been posting flyers informing residents of 3003 Van Ness that the DC Department of Buildings is conducting building-wide proactive inspections at the property. VNSTA believes that Equity has made insufficient effort to alert residents about the inspections, and as a result it has impeded progress. For this reason, the tenant association has been posting informational flyers. Evidence strongly suggests that Equity Residential employees have been taking down many of those flyers.
The flyers are particularly important because they let residents know that they must fill out an official permission from the Department of Buildings in order to have their apartment inspected. Equity’s efforts to take down flyers deprives residents of that important information, decreasing the chance that they will get a needed inspection, and slowing the work of the Department of Buildings. For these reasons, the tenant association has sent Equity Residential a third letter reminding the company that it is illegal to take down tenant association flyers from community bulletin boards, and that the law stipulates steep fines for doing so.
“I am writing to you for a third time about Equity Residential employees removing flyers that were posted by the tenant association.
We are concerned because the flyers inform residents about building-wide inspections by the DC Department of Buildings, which have found that many apartments lack electrical outlets in kitchens and bathrooms that are designed to prevent electrocution. We also are concerned because it is illegal for Equity Residential to remove tenant association posters, under DC law §42–3505.06.
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